Tag: history

Downham Hill

We talk so much about the age of misinformation, of myth and rumour being spread rapidly on social media. Sometimes we forget that misremembered stories, passed from one person to another over perhaps hundreds of years, are deeply embedded in our own thoughts and beliefs.

Between the Gloucestershire town of Dursley and village of Uley is a striking hill with an avenue of trees at its peak. Most modern maps refer to it as Downham Hill, but many locals know it as Smallpox Hill.

Downham Hill from Uley Bury by Owen Gower

I’ve lost count of the number of stories I’ve heard about Downham Hill and the reasons behind its nickname. Some think that it was established as a medieval plague hospital, others add that it was later repurposed as a smallpox isolation hospital. There are stories about long-since vanished towers on the peak, and communal graves around the base of the hill. I’ve even heard a story associating it with Edward Jenner’s research into vaccination.

Some of these stories have been repeated for so long that they’ve even made it into ‘official’ signage. The last time I walked up Downham Hill a notice from Natural England, a public body advising the government, made a bold claim:

“Near the summit of the hill lie the remains of an ancient tower-like cottage built in the reign of King Edward III around the time of the Black Death in 1346. It is believed to be one of the earliest isolation hospitals in England. For this reason the hill has been known locally as ‘Smallpox Hill’.”

But is this backed up by the historical and archaeological evidence?

The ‘communal graves’

Let’s start with the easy part. There are certainly various small tumps on the slopes of the hill, which the Gloucestershire County Council Historic Environment Record Archive describes as pillow mounds. These are evidence of animal husbandry, specifically the raising of rabbits for meat and fur. The Historic Environment Record Archive also refers to evidence of medieval cultivation terraces on the slopes and post-medieval quarrying at the summit. Tellingly, the earliest Ordnance Survey map of 1830 describes it as Warren Hill.

The tower/’hospital’

I will confess that I have taken only a very brief dive into the limited historical and archaeological sources relating to the mysterious and undated tower-like structure. However I think we can conclude that it definitely did exist. The Uley Society are aware of an 1882 painting of a nearby farm showing the hill in the background with a crenellated tower which seems conclusive enough. But what was it?

The Uley Society also have accounts from previous local residents. One recorded that her family had owned Downham Hill since 1776 and knew the tower to date from the time of the Black Death. Another, born in 1899, was told in school that it was used during the Napoleonic Wars to house sailors “suffering from a form of ‘pox’”.

Written documentary sources are harder to come by but, during a severe smallpox epidemic between 1732 and 1735, the accounts of the Dursley Overseers of the Poor do make reference to victims and provisions for them being sent “up [th]e hill”.

From these various snippets of information it would be quite easy to construct a basic narrative that there was an isolation hospital of some sorts, from an unknown date. But are we just putting 2 and 2 together?

Why the ornamentation? Why crenellate your fever hospital? Why turn it into a tower? Why plant an avenue of trees (these are clearly present in 1830 when, according to most narratives, the tower was still standing)?

And why would the Royal Navy bring sailors to Gloucestershire, an unnecessarily long distance from any naval centres, for the purposes of isolation?

In The Parish Magazine for Berkeley, Dursley, Stinchcombe, and Uley dated April 1869, a request for information was made:

“An old man living in Uley says, that the Tower on the top of Downham Hill, was built as a summer-house, or ‘pleasure-house’ as he called it, by Mr. Gyde, the same person who built the more modern part of Stout’s Hill. He recollects its being used as a Pest-house, and says two men died there of smallpox some seventy years ago. His father was carried there with the same complaint, but he recovered – an unusual thing probably, after such singular treatment. Can any of our readers give any additional information about the Tower, or any other Pest-houses in the neighbourhood.”

The Gyde family purchased Stouts Hill in 1697 and the Gothic revival country house that remains to this day was built in 1743 by Timothy Gyde. Gyde was known for lavish parties and entertaining. Stouts Hill was later purchased by the Lloyd Baker family, who are also recorded as owning Downham Hill. Whilst the unamed Uley resident was sharing stories that he had been told, he was certainly closer to the events in question than the other residents previously mentioned.

Could it be that Gyde owned the hill and that the tower might have been constructed as a folly of sorts, perhaps with a decorative avenue of trees leading to it? This does not feature at all in the myths told now, and yet seems highly plausible from the surviving information.

But what of the father of the Uley resident, who had been carried to Downham Hill with smallpox around 1799? Stouts Hill was sold in 1785. Perhaps the tower then did find use as a convenient and isolated building to serve as an ad-hoc pest house, or isolation hospital? After all, surely nearly all myths have just a tiny grain of truth at the heart of them.

By the early 1900s the tower is said to have collapsed, leaving just stories and an evocative name.

Perhaps now is the time to repeat the plea of April 1869: can any of you give any additional information about the tower?

Sources

Counterpart lease for Downham Hill from Gloucestershire Archives (D3549/39/4/14).

Overseers’ Accounts from Gloucestershire Archives (P124/OV/1/1).

Anon. “Uley.” The Parish Magazine for Berkeley, Dursley, Stinchcombe, and Uley (April 1869).

Frith, Brian. “Some aspects of the history of medicine in Gloucestershire, 1500-1800.” Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 108 (1990): 5-16.

Groom, Margaret. “Uley Archives.” Uley, Owlpen and Nympsfield Village News (February 2019): 12.

Poole, David. “Stouts Hill.” House and Heritage (2018).

Image credits

1830 Ordnance Survey map, sheet 35, showing area around Dursley and Uley. This work is based on data provided through www.VisionofBritain.org.uk and uses historical material which is copyright of the Great Britain Historical GIS Project and the University of Portsmouth.

3 May 2021
Alms

Sign above the entrance to the Perry and Dawes Almshouses by Owen Gower

Exploring Wotton-under-Edge last week, I chanced upon an alleyway I’d not seen before. Inside was a peaceful courtyard surrounded by a hodgepodge of old stone buildings and, to one side, a small chapel. It felt like a place where time has stood still, where the rhythms of life have continued, unchanged, for hundreds of years. Only the television aerials and occasional plastic plant pots tell a different story.

Now known as the Perry and Dawes Almshouses, they actually comprise three separate institutions: Hugh Perry’s Foundation, built in 1638; Thomas Dawes’ Hospital, constructed between 1722 and 1723; and the General Hospital, which dates from slightly later still. Perry has found his fortune in London but remembered his home town of Wotton-under-Edge in his will, leaving £300 “for an Almshouse, to be laid with gardens etc. as the Trustees should think fit, for six poor men and six poor women.” Space for a further six individuals, or families, was made available after the proceeds from the sale of property that had been left for the poor of the town by Thomas Dawes enabled further construction. Finally an almshouse elsewhere in the town, which had been demolished to make way for a school, was replaced by a building connecting Perry’s original almshouses with those established in memory of Dawes.

The central courtyard of the Perry and Dawes Almshouses by Owen Gower

Almshouses are an ancient form of charity and it’s this charitable nature that separates them from other similar institutions, such as workhouses. They primarily accepted older residents and some even had live-in wardens or matrons, perhaps similar to today’s sheltered housing. John Loosley’s 2010 survey identified a total of 48 almshouses in the historic county of Gloucestershire and estimated that during the 1800s approximately 1% of people over the age of 60 in Gloucestershire were resident in almshouses. Some almshouses are still in operation today, including the Perry and Dawes Almshouses. Some have have existed for centuries, such as the St Lawrence Hospital in Cirencester which was founded in 1235, whilst others are more recent establishments, including the Fitzhardinge Almshouses in Berkeley which were built in 1899.

Initially up to 30 people could be accommodated in the combined Perry and Dawes Almshouses (modernisation work in the 1970s means there are now just nine apartments). Potential residents would be assessed by Trustees on the basis of need but the primary requirement was that they had to demonstrate some connection with Wotton-under-Edge. It’s not surprising, therefore, that the Almshouses became to some extent a microcosm of the town. In Census returns of the 1800s and early 1900s residents are described as former clothworkers, weavers, carpenters, shopkeepers, agricultural labourers, shoemakers and domestic servants, showing just some of the main trades that might have been found in Wotton-under-Edge at this time. In recognition of the charity that they received, those living in the Almshouses were expected to live by certain rules, as a large sign painted in the courtyard still reminds residents today:

“ARTICLES AND CONDITIONS TO BE OBSERVED BY THOSE POOR MEN AND WOMEN THAT ENJOY THE CHARITY OF HUGH PERRY ESQ And ALDERMAN OF LONDON.

 If any Persons in this Almshouse shall behave themselves in carriage or conversation as to be thought unfit & unworthy of the Charity of this Gift; then their part & portion of Apparel Fuel & Money shall be given to such persons as the Mayor & his Brethren shall think fit. The Persons enjoying this Charity shall constantly attend upon the Public Prayers at the time appointed for them to be read. Those neglecting to attend on the Prayer, shall be deemed as unworthy of the Charity aforesaid, which shall be distributed to other poor people as the Mayor and his Brethren shall think fit. That the Lecturer should not be absent without the leave & consent of the Mayor. The Chapel shall be kept clean & decent by some one Almsman to be appointed by the Mayor who shall pay for the same. The poor scholars taught by the Gift are to be always present when the Prayers are read.”

Looking at the names of the Almshouse residents (sometimes described as “patients” or “inmates”) in Census returns, I was struck by just how important this form of charity must have been. Many of those living in the Almshouses would have spent most of their life in tied accommodation; where else would they live when, for whatever reason, they were no longer able to work? Take Fanny Perkins, who was living in the Almshouses in 1911. Fanny was born in Wotton-under-Edge in 1839 but was in domestic service probably from her late teens until she was into her 60s. Her employers included Fenwick Richards, a tobacco manufacturer and philanthropist who was well-known in Bristol, and William Powell, a glass bottle manufacturer and Justice of the Peace. By 1901, Fanny had returned to Wotton-under-Edge and was living on her own means. We can perhaps only speculate as to what happened next, but it seems possible Fanny met some unexpected costs or had simply not saved enough for her retirement. By 1911 she had turned to the Almshouses for assistance and saw out the remainder of her life there. She died in 1913 at the age of 73 and was buried on 22 March.

One resident in 1871 was Eliza Matilda Richings, who is described as “formerly [a] beerhouse keeper”. Along with her husband Thomas, she had run a slightly sinister sounding pub on Church Street, The Jolly Reaper (I suppose for people living in the countryside it wouldn’t have seemed such an unusual name, just a happy agricultural labourer, but I can’t help think of pirate ships). Eliza was baptised in Minchinhampton on 29 September 1816, the daughter of Thomas and Mary West, and had been a servant to John Burland at Bradley House prior to marrying Thomas Richings on 7 August 1849. Thomas died at the end of 1866 and perhaps it was then that Eliza sought help from the Trustees of the Almshouses. She remained at the Almshouses until her death at the age of 1881. The Jolly Reaper pub appears to have continued with a different landlord until finally closing around 1911.

One final story about the residents of the Perry and Dawes Almshouses concerns two further names found in the 1871 Census: Francesco (Francis) and Eliza Formenti. Eliza had been born in Wotton-under-Edge in 1795, the daughter of John and Mary Smith. Francesco was born in Lombardy, Italy in 1790. I have not been able to find any record of Francesco’s arrival in England, however he was certainly in Wotton-under-Edge in 1826 when he was recorded as renting a house from Catharine Page. Eliza and Francesco married on 17 June 1827. In the 1830 Pigot’s Directory of Gloucestershire, Francesco was listed as being a hardware dealer. Always resident at Market Street, in 1841 he was described as an ironmonger and in 1851 as a general dealer. The 1861 Census return shows that, alongside his shop, Francesco had started to manufacture barometers. Indeed, one of his barometers was sold at auction last year. In the first half of the 1800s, there were approximately 4,000 Italians living in England, of whom 50% lived in London. Many came from Northern Italy and had left following the Napoleonic Wars and subsequent decline in the agricultural economy, travelling on foot across France to England. Migrants from different regions had their own particular skills and, amongst the early wave of Italians in England, were barometer makers from Como in Lombardy. Perhaps they included Francesco in their number. We will perhaps never know why Francesco came to settle in Wotton-under-Edge when the majority of his countrymen ended up in larger towns and cities, however he had spent at least half his life in the town when he and Eliza moved to the Almshouses. In the 1870 Post Office Directory he is listed as a toy dealer, but a year later he was resident in the Perry and Dawes Almshouses. It seems likely that he continued to rent his premises throughout his time in Wotton-under-Edge and when age or ill health prevented him from working perhaps he could no longer continue to make the rental payments. Eliza was buried on 1 February 1873 and Francesco on 5 March 1874. They do not appear to have had any children, thus bringing to an end the temporary Italian community in Wotton-under-Edge.

There must be countless other stories over the nearly 400 year history of the Perry and Dawes Almshouses. In a world without the welfare state and where, for some people, retirement was not an option, the Almshouses provided a safety net so that those who found themselves on hard times or unable to work could maintain a degree of independence and stay living in their home (or adopted home) town. The charitable acts of Hugh Perry and Thomas Dawes have created this amazing community where, over centuries, residents of Wotton-under-Edge have been able to live out the final years of their life in dignity.

Sources

Loosley, John. “Gloucestershire Almshouses.” Gloucestershire History 24 (2010): 19-32.

Wotton-under-Edge General Charities. Perry and Dawes Almshouses. Wotton-under-Edge: Wotton-under-Edge General Charities, n.d.

25 February 2020
Bridewell

Old Bridewell Berkeley by Stephen Jenner (from the collection of Dr Jenner’s House, Berkeley, used with permission)

Most residents of the historic Gloucestershire market town of Berkeley still know the Victorian stone building in the corner of the Market Place as “the bank”, though it has been some years since it closed its doors. Berkeley’s modern inhabitants might be surprised that in this prominent position in the centre of the town once stood one of Gloucestershire’s very first prisons.

I’ve been researching the history of this building because it also provides a unique insight into the lives of the historic residents of Gloucestershire at their worst, or perhaps just their most desperate. Indeed the records of the justice system can provide one of the richest sources of information about the lives of our forebears. At their most detailed, committal records even describe the appearance of the prisoner whilst then, as now, the most interesting trials would also feature prominently in newspaper articles.

The Bridewell at Berkeley was certainly in existence by 1672 and, like other similarly named institutions established at this time, followed the model of the original Bridewell in London. As both a prison for petty criminals and a workhouse for the poor and destitute, bridewells were intended to bring about behavioural change through menial work. At Berkeley, prisoners were initially tasked with spinning woollen yarn or grinding malt. In order to ensure that their labour was not in vain, the authorities required that local brewers only purchased malt that had been ground in the Bridewell.

Who was imprisoned there? The Bridewell at Berkeley served a sizeable part of Gloucestershire, including the Vale of Berkeley, the Forest of Dean, Stroud, Dursley and even Chipping Sodbury. For the most part, I think that those confined there fall into two broad categories, the first of which I have termed ‘crimes of abandonment’. These include such crimes as running away from your family, which saw Sarah Banknett from Chipping Sodbury committed for one month after leaving her three children behind, and breaking an apprenticeship indenture by taking leave of your master, something that John Norton from Wotton-under-Edge is understood to have done in 1739. Perhaps of most concern to the authorities, and the cause of a significant proportion of committals, was the crime of having an illegitimate child. In 1739, Elizabeth Young of St Briavels was described as “being wayward and disorderly of person” after giving birth to an illegitimate son, John; however this kind of judgement of character is rare in these records. Illegitimate children were considered a burden on the parish; the punishment here was for leaving a child “chargeable”, rather than for the act of having a child outside of wedlock.

Alongside those imprisoned for ‘crimes of abandonment’, were those who had committed a variety of other criminal offences. At the more petty end of the scale, were cases such as Thomas Collins from Slimbridge, imprisoned in 1739 for a second offence of selling ale without a licence. Those convicted of more serious crimes included William Champion from Cam, committed in 1739 after breaking into the house of Daniel Cobb and taking several pieces of gold and silver, and Ann Coopey and Hester Low who were imprisoned in the Bridewell on 13 December 1735. Ann was alleged to have run a bawdy house in Dursley, whilst Hester had been “caught in bed with a man in the house of the above said Ann Coopey”. Needless to say, the man was neither named nor, it seems, punished for his role in this crime.

Sentences appear to have been short; in some cases a brief stay in the Bridewell was more than enough to bring about the desired reformation in behaviour. Timothy Thurston from Ham, for example, who was imprisoned in 1739 for “having begotten a child on the body of Sarah… and he refusing to marry her” and this was, it seems, enough to convince Timothy of the error of his ways. He and Sarah Smart were married in St Mary’s church, Berkeley on 27 November 1739. There were however a few instances of what seem like excessively long sentences. On 14 May 1735, Mary Humphries of Mitcheldean was committed for a whole year having given birth to an illegitimate child, a boy named Thomas. It’s pure speculation, as the records do not show the reasoning behind the length of an individual sentence, but perhaps it was believed that a longer stay might have been appropriate for Mary as Thomas was her second illegitimate child, her first daughter Mary having died in 1733 aged just 4.

The bridewells may have been a new model for justice, the start of a move away from corporal and capital punishment, however they were far from perfect. In his 1777 survey, The State of the Prisons in England and Wales prison reformer John Howard gave a damning verdict on the Bridewell at Berkeley, describing it as “quite out of repair”. I think this may be an understatement. Howard states that there was just one room for male and female prisoners, with no water, no straw for the floor and no chimney (and therefore no heating). The yard was not considered secure, so prisoners were not even allowed to go outside for fresh air and exercise. Even the task of grinding malt had eventually been taken away from them. Such horrific conditions must have had more than just an effect on the physical health of those confined there:

“The sensible old keeper lamented the effects of close confinement in idleness, upon the health of even young strong Prisoners. Many such, he said, he had known quite incapable of working for some weeks after their discharge.“

Howard’s survey was instrumental in bringing about much needed reformation of the prison system. In 1785, the Gloucestershire magistrate Sir George Onesiphorus Paul obtained an Act of Parliament to allow for the rebuilding of the county gaol in Gloucester and the Bridewell at Lawford’s Gate in Bristol, along with the construction of new houses of correction at Northleach, Horsley and Littledean. Once these had opened the Bridewell at Berkeley became redundant and fell into disrepair. It must have stayed this way for many years, the drawing that illustrates this post was probably not made until at least the early 1830s, a constant reminder to Berkeley’s residents of its harsh conditions and, perhaps, an incentive for them not to commit any of their own misdemeanours.

Sources

Gaol calendars from Gloucestershire Archives (Q/SG/1).

17 February 2020